Happened to me twice for long term stays (e.g. cancelling 2 days before start date) and it can completely ruin your plans.
If they comped it, that sounds very much like they helped you a lot. Not sure how anyone could describe this as "not really" helping?
that sucks. I think a host should only be allowed to cancel if they offer another place with similar features (like room number, and location) for the same amount of time.
If your long term stay is cancelled a few days before it can be pretty much impossible to find an alternative. On both occasions that this has happened to me, Airbnb has offered only a $100 voucher.
The reality is long term stay on Airbnb is a risky bet. Still often worth the risk, but something to be aware of.
I would guess that the same can happen with all other alternatives. Perhaps not for a hotel but who would want to stay in a hotel for a month? (Also that would be a huge expense)
Luckily I found a hotel literally last couple rooms and very very expensive for what it was.
I couldn't get airbnb to do shit besides give a refund for the airbnb reservation and I think maybe I got 250 or 500 or something negligible.
They 'try' to find an alternative on the platform but wouldn't pay for my hotel (s now need 2 rooms). And since there are no airbnbs available... let alone in the city and similar.
I have never stayed airbnb again only hotels.
if they allow hosts to pull that crap they should pay for alternate hotel lodging.
That means if they boot you from the flight or hotel room, they have to pay for your costs to find a replacement.
Yes, many companies have terms that try to limit their liability, but those terms usually aren't enforceable.
Airlines overbook and will try to get out of it by refunding your ticket. Refuse the refund. They'll up the price a few times. You can get up to an upgraded ticket on a later flight + hotel stay if the stars align.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...
Also in my experience airlines will go out of there way to help and rebook. Sometimes it is the next day though which sucks but isn't totally apples to oranges ;)
After causing a sufficient amount of fuss because of the urgency of it all it eventually got escalated to someone more senior but the result was the same. Best they could do was a refund, no recourse for the host, with the extra salt in the wounds with the parting words of something like "I can provide you no further help today as it's a holiday weekend and I am leaving now and will not return until Tuesday". To this day I still suspect that the host simply got a higher priced offer given it was a popular weekend that had an unseasonably great weather forecast and so they cancelled on us. No effort to find us alternate accomodation. No refund sufficient to cover the costs of doing it ourselves at such late notice. Nothing that came close to addressing the fact multiple families had now wasted their money on plans they couldn't do.
Unfortunately it's not the first time it had happened either. The story has been the same, the only saving grace in the other situations is we'd been able to work out our own Plan B. I'd never use Airbnb again unless I was confident there was a Plan B I could execute on with only an hours notice. That limits its usefulness to out of season and in areas with a multitude of options, or where I am at least ok significantly adjusting my planned location.
So, while there isn’t a huge amount of recompense in the event it happens (I’ve been on the receiving end, literally arrived for them to tell me that sorry, they can’t do this week - it sucks), they do penalise hosts who do this, and will almost always take the side of the guest in any dispute.
If AirBnB can provide a way for that to not happen, or at least for it to stop within a few days with our strong renter-protection laws then they could basically replace every long term rental business in Denmark.
daily rates at hotels and airbnbs add up way too fast
monthly stays at airbnb's are much closer to the local rental price, usually 10-20% above a local lease, but without the issue of actually leasing
monthly stays are also furnished (whereas it can be very hard to find a furnished place to lease at all!)
monthly stays also get around most short term stay restrictions created specifically in reaction to AirBnB, which makes it much more comfortable for someone that booked to not have to worry about who we talk to in the building or nearby
I love being a situation to travel this way. Its pretty amazing to see that its currently become a crucial portion of their revenues.
The problem, at least in Europe, is that so many Airbnbs are now being operated as “rent to rent” where a company (or individual) rents property long term specifically so they can then in turn rent it out on Airbnb (often through an intermediary that manages the property for them). The margins they need for confident profitability (considering voids etc) are ~100% over the long term rental cost.
I’m astonished you’ve found that the prices are so similar: which location(s) is this in?
I just moved out of an Airbnb I stayed in for a month where my average nightly cost was, quite literally, 200% over the amount that I would pay if I leased the property myself — and that’s not in peak season, and after negotiating.
5 years ago the cost was pretty similar but not now that Airbnb has become an industry and people have worked out how to squeeze every drop of profit out of it.
(And if you’re willing to rent a room, you can pay less than the long term local price with some savvy)
- They are getting into the rental market, basically longer term rentals with short-term leases or something like that.
- They are getting into property management under their own brand, where they will manage Airbnb branded properties (small Hotels and homes). Something similar to what Oyo rooms (https://www.oyorooms.com/us/) does.
And it’s usually not cheaper than a hotel anymore. Now I only use it for large groups for places like cabins.
During the intervening time, as I thought about it and did more research on prices, we landed on we would be better off looking for Homewood Suites[2] and skip Airbnb. This isn’t a marketing pitch for Hilton, I am just most familiar with the brand. The other chains may be just as good.
1. We always know what we are getting. I can just go to the Hilton app and pick a hotel. I know I’m going to have a two room suite, kitchen, a work area, a small gym downstairs, probably a pool. It’s going to be hopefully well cleaned and if not, at least we know we have someone on staff.
2. We save 15%-20% overall between the highest end Amex cobranded card when booking stays via points and accumulating points any other time we spend by charging it.
3. I also travel for work and stay in Hilton hotels. I get reimbursed and get to earn points.
4. We never have to worry about cancellations.
[1] there is no way we are selling our house and trying to buy later on with the crazy market. We are renting it out.
[2] This is not an ad or endorsement. I just happen to always book an Embassy Suites for business trips and we prefer staying there for vacations. Homewood Suites is a cheaper brand. But still better than their lowest brand Home2Suites.
If i need a hotel, usually I first try Marriot as that’s the one I collect points on. I like their cheaper brand Aloft, each hotel has a free thing usually attached to the bar, such as billiards or in one case a retro arcade. If nothing on there works for me, or if I need an apartment/kitchen, I use booking.com as a search engine. Then I book directly, unless booking.com is more flexible.
Booking directly means you can usually call the front desk quickly and change your checkin/checkout dates and often can get early checkin and late checkout. Last month I was traveling for work and booked directly. Not only could I check in at 10am and take a nap, when plans changed I spent 5 minutes on the phone to extend one stay and shorten the next stay. My colleague used a travel agency and when he called them he got put on hold while they called booking.com! Ultimately he (well our company) paid for 2 hotel rooms that night. It’s even more important to book flights directly for the same reason.
These days, Covid can easily change your plans. I’ve not gotten Covid yet, but I’ve had flights cancelled due to it, and once had to change my flights because my pre-travel Covid test was in the wrong format to return home.
But, in our case when we are planning to live there and I’m working and we will have a car, comfortable sleeping arrangements, a separate workspace, decent WiFi [1], and a kitchen are far more important. We can drive to the city on the weekend and in the evenings.
[1] my backup plan for bad WiFi is using my phone and my iPad as hotspots. T-mobile has unlimited hot spot with 50Gb high speed hot spot for each device.
I can spin up a large Windows Workspace VM or Cloud 9 Linux environment on AWS to conserve data coming to my computer if needed.
AirBnB's strength has always been in cities, but the cities are cracking down hard on STRs. E.g. NYC passed a law making rentals for < 30 days in the city illegal.
I do wonder there is a regulatory risk that cities will push out the min time to, say, 60 days if they feel that they haven't solved their "AirBnB problem" with a 30 day min stay.
The law was existing, the city simply chose to start enforcing it.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/21/13361536/airbnb-new-york...
Basically noone wants daily-changing "neighbors", half of them partying half the nights in their (multi-apartment) buildings, while finding an apartment for rent is getting harder and harder (and much more expensive).
If airbnb was the thing it was marketed as in the beginning (you go on a vacation, rent the apartment out for that week or two), then sure... but people buy apartments (at currently overinflated prices) just to rent it out on airbnb full time.